Tracking assets, physical inventory, and other objects in a large-scale enterprise is a daunting task. Traditionally, this requires a manual, physical inventory that must be regularly repeated. Further, as assets move from place to place, or out of the control of the enterprise, the conventional process requires a time-intensive paperwork trail to track the movement of the assets.
This already-daunting task is made even more difficult when the assets being tracked are physically similar, since in that case every specific serial number must be verified to conclusively identify the specific item.
Recently, for items such as shipping containers, radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have been used to partially automate this process in a real-time location system (RTLS). In the common case, an asset with an attached RFID tag transmits a unique identifier, allowing an RFID tag reader to easily receive the transmitted ID number and thereby identify specific shipping containers.
An entirely different type of asset location is used for locating stolen vehicles. A commonly known system of this type is the “LoJack” system manufactured by the LoJack Corporation of Westwood, Ma, and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,818,998, 4,908,629, 5,917,423, and 6,665,613, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference. In general terms, this type of system uses a remotely activated system to track a vehicle in motion, using transceivers installed in the target vehicle in combination with transceiver/detectors mounted on other vehicles.
Typically, a LoJack system is used to track stolen vehicles. When a target vehicle is reported stolen, its transceiver is remotely activated, and thereafter police units that are specially equipped with transceiver/detectors can detect and locate the target vehicle.
LoJack is a form of an asset location system that utilizes a special FCC-allocated radio frequency (173.075 MHz), an older technology, very high frequency (VHF) signal. The LoJack transceiver is passive until activated by police radio towers, and specially equipped police cruisers with receivers must work together to triangulate and locate the target vehicle. LoJack does not utilize GPS for location information, and is currently only available in 22 states.
Another type of long-range vehicle-tracking system uses global positioning satellites (GPS) to identify the current location of a vehicle. In this case, a GPS receiver is mounted in the vehicle to determine the vehicle location, and a separate transmitter is used to send the location data to the person or entity tracking the vehicle. In the common “OnStar” system, cellular telephone technology is used to activate the GPS receiver and to transmit the location data to the OnStar service center.
There is, therefore, a need in the art for a system and process that allows tracking of vehicles and other assets on both a long-range and short-range basis.